What a difference a year makes, eh?

A year ago, Sam Honzek made the Calgary Flames’ opening night roster right out of training camp and made his NHL debut a month before his 20th birthday.

He made the NHL roster entirely on merit after a superb pre-season. When the games started to count, Honzek seemed a bit overwhelmed. After missing a couple weeks of games after a hit by Chicago defender Connor Murphy, he played once more and then headed to the American Hockey League to round out his game with he Wranglers.

Flash forward a year, and it certainly seems like the Flames’ 2023 first-round pick has made last season’s lessons count as he’s been given a pretty unique opportunity to make a second impression.

Honzek was cut from Flames camp on Sept. 30 and assigned to the Wranglers. Because the Flames were without both Jonathan Huberdeau and Martin Pospisil to begin the regular season, the Flames summoned Honzek to fill out their roster. At the get-go, the Flames’ starting forwards seemed pretty set and so bringing up Honzek seemed as much about taking advantage of his waiver exempt status as it was about giving him a chance to soak up the NHL atmosphere a bit.

Honzek slotted into the Flames’ lineup for the home-opener on Oct. 11, and he’s made it tough to take him out of the lineup since. Playing primarily with Mikael Backlund and Blake Coleman on the “tough minutes” line, Honzek has started to carve out a niche for himself at the NHL level.

“Sam’s been excellent with the pace of the game that he’s playing with,” said Huska after morning skate on Sunday. “Like, he’s checking with purpose. So he’s closing really quick on people. His stick has been good. The one thing you do like with Sam, I look at him more as a coach’s player, where details really matter to him. And I think along the lines of Wes’s comment, a younger guy’s trying to figure out, okay, how do I stay in the NHL? He’s trying to figure or try to understand for himself that if I am a good checker and I play with pace, there’s a pretty good chance I’m going to be staying around. So I think he’s understanding what’s required of him.”

More importantly, Honzek’s game has visibly improved over the few weeks he’s been in the lineup.

In the home-opener, Honzek had a pass intercepted at the Blues’ blueline and it led to an odd-man rush the other way and a Blues goal.

On Friday in Winnipeg, on a similar play, Honzek battled to keep the puck moving forward through the neutral zone and ended up winning his battles. His effort led to a pass to Blake Coleman and set up a Mikael Backlund goal. Honzek earned his first NHL point, an assist, for his efforts.

Honzek is still quite young and pretty raw. He turns 21 on Nov. 12. Sunday’s game against the Rangers was just his 13th NHL game and 67th professional regular season appearance. But his progress this season has been encouraging, and perhaps he’ll be able to live up to the impressive promise he showed in his draft year.

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